Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times writes for Saturday’s paper that Bancroft family member Leslie Hill is the one who pushed other members to talk to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch about his offer to buy the company they control, Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.
Perez-Pena wrote, “On Friday, May 25, Michael Elefante, a family lawyer and Dow Jones board member, told M. Peter McPherson, the company’s chairman, that the Bancrofts wanted to meet with the board. What he did not reveal was that privately, a new consensus had emerged: family members arrived at the board meeting Thursday carrying a draft of a statement, released that evening, saying that they had decided to meet with the News Corporation.
“The meeting will take place Monday at noon, according to people close to the board and the family, nearly all of whom were granted anonymity. Family members say that at least some of them have signed confidentiality agreements.
“The decision to meet with the News Corporation could be a pivotal moment in the history of a company that the family has owned for more than a century. Family members are already discussing ways that in any takeover an internal governing board might be created to protect the news pages of Dow Jones’s centerpiece, The Wall Street Journal, from the influence of Mr. Murdoch, whose brand of journalism they disdain.”
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